Jesus Touched a Man
29 January, 2018 // in The Coffeehouse Cleric // by Alex Rowe.
All throughout his life, Jesus was confronted with a choice: would he fit in? Would he conform? Jesus was a Jew, but the more I learn about him and the Jewish world in which he lived, the more I am struck with how transgressive his way of life often was. He defied easy categorisation, and regularly confused and confounded those that he met. The story below is no different.
“A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. (Mark 1.40–42)
Notice that the man with leprosy (a generic term for a variety of skin conditions) asks to be made ‘clean’ and not ‘well.’ The reason for this was that this man was understood by wider society not only to be unwell, but also ritually unclean and thus socially outcast. One commentator writes: ‘To have such a condition was not just a health liability; it made one a prisoner, cut off from all normal life.’ According to certain Jewish tradition, a person with leprosy was not to be touched, lest their uncleanness be passed around, and if approached he would have to cry out as a warning, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ (Lev 13.45).
As strange as it sounds, can you imagine going untouched, perhaps for months or years at a time? No handshake nor high-five. No loving embrace. Not a single soft kiss. What a lonely existence that must be. What awful isolation. We are social animals; we are made to touch, made to slap knees and laugh, made to fall upon shoulders and cry. We are made to be together. Honestly, I am not sure what would have been worse for the man: the uncomfortableness of his condition, or the deep loneliness of his daily existence.
When Jesus meets this man, he is ‘moved with compassion.’ The imagery of the Greek verb (splagchnistheis) is strong; it imagines a deep churning of the guts, and its grammatically passive voice suggests that the feeling is involuntary. Jesus is not moved by a heady ideal of altruism he feels obliged to obey. This feeling of compassion runs deep, at the level of heart, soul, and spirit. Compassion wells up within him, like an overflowing spring that cannot be stopped. The man with leprosy asks, “Are you willing to heal me?” And Jesus replies, “Yes, I am willing.”
All throughout his life, Jesus was confronted with a choice: would he fit in? Would he conform?
At this point in the story the narrative action slows down, almost as though it happens in slow motion. Jesus reaches forward (ekteinas) with his hand and touches (hēpsato) the man. Jesus touches the man. He reaches out, and touches the untouchable. He comes closer than anybody had been for so long, and enters the space the man with leprosy thought uninhabitable except for himself. I can only begin to wonder how this must have felt; tingles and shivers down the spine? Tears in the corners of his eyes?
In Jesus’ touch there was great power. Jesus’ love and holiness, his sacred hospitality, was like an immense force that expelled the illness and all the brokenness and social baggage that came with it. Surely it takes only the hardest of hearts not to be moved by this story. But there were some so unmoved. Like I said, Jesus often did not fit in. The confusion that he caused amongst the religious factions of his day led them to grow increasingly hostile towards him; even to the point that they wanted him dead.
In another post, I will explore how this story fits into the bigger story of Jesus’ whole life and death. But for now, I encourage you to dwell upon this one moment. Meditate on this single scene. Feel the weighty beauty of that touch, when Jesus touched the man.
Christians say ‘God is love,’ and they are right. But this is no abstract philosophical statement. We see in Jesus a living, breathing, walking and talking embodiment of that love, and therefore an example we can follow. Jesus gives even the most lowly in society the dignitiy of his full attention. So let us ask ourselves, who are the ‘untouchables’ around us, in our own world? Whom can we ‘touch’ with our love?
Thank you for reading. The Coffeehouse Cleric is a Medium publication dedicated to asking the big questions of life. It features writing on three main areas: minimalism, spirituality, and learning. If you enjoyed this piece, please do share it with friends and family on social media.
